I turned eighteen two weeks ago.
Not exactly the exciting start to adulthood I'd imagined.
Mom and Dad flew overseas for the summer the day after my birthday, leaving me with the house and a list of chores that was probably longer than it needed to be. They promised they'd be back before autumn.
Right now, that feels like a lifetime away.
I wasn't planning on keeping a journal.
Need somewhere to put my thoughts.
Things have been strange lately.
The news has been full of weird stories for the past few days.
Engines refusing to leave their sheds.
Engines becoming unusually aggressive.
Others apparently too weak to pull trains they'd handled for years.
Everyone seems to have a different explanation.
Faulty coal for the steam engines and faulty petrol for the dieses.
Someone even joked online that the engines had caught the flu.
That's what I kept telling myself.
Four days ago, I decided to go walking.
I ended up farther east than I'd ever been before, following an old railway that looked oddly untouched.
No weeds growing between the sleepers.
Eventually, I noticed a single rose growing beside the tracks.
It looked completely ordinary.
Scattered across the petals were tiny metallic-looking grains.
Little reddish-gold flecks.
Like someone had ground up rust...
That shouldn't be possible.
Rust isn't supposed to sparkle.
I remember crouching beside it.
Almost... nostalgic, in a way.
Without really thinking, I leaned in and took a deep breath.
The tiny metallic grains lifted from the petals as I inhaled.
Some disappeared into the air.
I coughed for a few seconds.
Picked the flower anyway.
I figured I'd press it between the pages of a book when I got home.
The next morning the rumors about the engines got worse.
Several services were delayed because some of them apparently refused to move.
Others were making noises nobody had heard before.
One newspaper even described them as looking "unwell."
I remember thinking how ridiculous that sounded.
How does an engine get sick?
I'm not laughing anymore.
The reddish-gold particles have spread farther through the petals.
They're eating away at them without actually destroying them.
The flower isn't wilting.
I know how insane that sounds.
Yet somehow whatever's covering those petals looks exactly like rust, and every day there's a little more of it.
I've thought about throwing the rose away.
I even picked it up yesterday.
Maybe I'm just getting attached to the weirdest souvenir imaginable.
Or maybe it's something else.
I've started noticing little things.
Nothing anyone else would notice.
Sometimes I hear distant whistles before anyone else reacts.
The sound of steel wheels on rails has become... comforting.
Yesterday I caught myself staring out the window whenever I heard an engine passing by.
Not because I was curious.
Because something inside me wanted to follow it.
It was like I was a little kid.
I keep finding black dust on my pillow every morning.
I'm probably imagining connections where there aren't any.
The engines getting sick.
They're probably unrelated.
I pray to God that they are.
(Let me know what you think!)
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